Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety and Multilingualism: a Case of Croatian-Speaking Undergraduate Students of English Language and Literature

This thesis aims to explore whether there is a correlation between multilingualism and foreign language anxiety in a classroom environment. The participants in the study were 29 Croatianspeaking undergraduate students of English Language and Literature, who were divided into two groups based on how many foreign languages (FLs) they used in a classroom environment on a daily or a weekly basis. They filled out an online questionnaire containing questions about their demographic and language background as well as the 33-item Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale to test their Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety (FLCA) levels in English and, for the students who are either double majoring in English and another FL or attending FL classes outside of university, in another FL. The results showed that there is no significant difference in FLCA levels between the two groups of English language majors. This is consistent with the findings of previous research which shows that the levels of FLCA in bilingual and trilingual individuals are almost equal. Regarding the group containing only students who engaged with another FL besides English on a daily or a weekly basis, the results indicated that they had slightly higher FLCA levels in their other FL than in English. It was proposed that the reason for this could be the age at which they started acquiring the other FL, which was, for most participants, higher than the age at which they started to acquire English. Another reason might be their constant and greater exposure to English in their daily lives, due to which they might feel more comfortable using English in contrast to another FL, which they only use in a classroom setting. Further research with larger and more diverse sample of participants could provide more insight into this topic